Microsoft announced on July 1st its plans for a new processor-based digital authentication system known as 'Palladium', which would give Microsoft unprecedented remote-control priveleges on home PCs fitted with the Palladium chip. This system is - like all instruments of fascism - being introduced under the guise of 'security' and also 'copyright protection'. Of course these are both serious issues that need to be addressed, but the implications of the Palladium system are much wider-ranging and far more disturbing than simply preventing viruses and protecting the music industry and other copyrights.

The following articles, among many others, reveal how Palladium is almost certain to put an end to Open Source software as we know it - i.e. it would mean curtains for Linux. It would also mean curtains for the Macintosh platform if Apple refused to submit control of their customers' machines to Microsoft under the Palladium system. Added to these anti-trust atrocities are a whole host of privacy concerns - for example, Palladium would give Microsoft unlimited remote access to your personal internet history, email history, email encryption keys and even your hard disk contents. It would dictate what you can and cannot install and run on your PC, and would also enable Microsoft-controlled, hardware-supported blocking of websites that it deems 'insecure' and hence 'non-Palladium-approved'. That's right - Palladium will give Microsoft EDITORIAL CONTROL OVER THE INTERNET. And because it is hardware-supported (Palladium will run from INSIDE your PC's processor), it would be impossible to circumvent.

PLEASE read the articles linked below, and then send the links to your friends. I am helping to organize a group to put together a website aimed at making internet users aware of the dangers of Palladium and its hardware cohort, the TCPA chip. Anyone who would like to be involved, please make a posting on this newswire thread.

Intel and AMD plan to have the first Palladium-enabled chips on the market in home PCs by 2004. The facts about Palladium speak for themselves: the public will use their buying power to preserve their rights if they are simply made aware of the sheer and absolute assault on privacy and freedom of choice that Palladium represents. Of course, we can expect that the chip manufacturers and Microsoft will keep very quiet about the more dangerous aspects of Palladium technology when they start promoting it, so it is of utmost importance that we begin organising now to raise awareness throughout the online community. Palladium, if allowed to take hold, will mean the end of digital privacy and the death of the free internet within 2 years.

ZDNET News - Who trusts Microsoft's Palladium? Not me
 http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-939817.html

The Register - MS to eradicate GPL, hence Linux
 http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html

internetnews.com - Is Microsoft's Palladium a Trojan Horse?
 http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/1378731

PBS.org - The end is near
www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020627.htm

If any of these links are broken our outdates, simply do an internet search for "microsoft palladium" and you will be presented with a host of similar articles.